Dr. Martha Crouch understands our responsibility to the future. As long ago as 1990, Dr. Crouch, a well respected plant molecular biologist, published a paper in The Plant Cell (April, pages 275-277) discussing basic problems associated with monoculture and plant genetic engineering that were and are being funded by Monsanto and other multinational agricultural corporations. Dr. Crouch’s concerns are easy to understand (let me know if you want a copy, I have one here) but apparently nobody was listening. What she predicted is happening – and worse. In her paper, she used the example of palm oil.

Fourteen years later, in 2004, I had the pleasure of meeting a Maori elder, Pauline Tangiori. Maori is an indigenous group of people in New Zealand. Pauline described to me how a group of Monsanto salesmen had misled her people into giving over their property for a Monsanto palm oil plantation.

I asked Pauline why they had sold the rights for their precious land, and she said, approximately: “These salesmen were scientists. We thought they knew better than we did.” I tried to hide my astonishment. It turns out I was the naïve one, but at the time I really thought everyone knows to never trust a salesman. I said: “These people are salesmen, not scientists. The function of a scientist is to learn how nature works; the function of a salesman, or a corporation, is to make money. These are not compatable.” Pauline looked me square in the face and said: “How are we supposed to know that? If you are a scientist, and you know something that important, then you should tell the people who don’t know.”

And so that’s what I have been trying to do ever since. It turns out to be harder than it sounds. It takes at least two to communicate. At least one of them has to listen and the other one has to learn how to say it. Even then, it turns out that pretty much nobody wants to hear about the real realities of biology. Most people here in the USA would rather believe the lies, and in the 22 years since Dr. Crouch withdrew from her research career, and the seven years since I got my assignment from Pauline, the technologies, economics and legal tactics of Monsanto and other similar organizations are turning out probably to be more massively and permanently harmful to the ecosystem than any other single human activity except excessive growth. Maybe it’s time we all started to do some critical listening.

Because technology in the absence of compassion is shameful,
But technology or religion in the absence of good basic science is suicidal.

And the only thing powerful enough to stop the corposystem is the will of the people. Pauline says it like it is.

Apparently a law has been proposed in Arizona to ban, among other “laws,” the law of karma.

Well.

I am almost speechless.

First, the concept of karma is a well formulated appreciation, developed by scholars over the past two or three thousand years, of a natural law. That is a law of nature. That means it’s how nature functions. Just as we also know that nature functions according to the law of gravity, the laws of thermodynamics and the laws of aerodynamics, we also know that nature operates by the law of cause and effect. That means if you do something — it will have an effect on something else. If you fall off a cliff, something will happen. If you throw a rock through a window, something will happen. If you hit something, you will get a reaction of some sort.

Now, we could try to repeal this law of nature, or we could try to repeal gravity so we would no longer be tied to the ground. Or we could try to repeal the law of thermodydanmics so we could recycle our energy. Among the many, many things that we do not know about nature, these are a few that we do know quite well. And I don’t think we can actually repeal them, so in the end we would be only demonstrating our inability to understand the law of cause and effect. If you don’t know what a law of nature is — people will think you aren’t very well educated. If you don’t know what karma is, people will think you haven’t studied what it is you propose to do. If you don’t know that the Bible says exactly the same thing — “As ye sow, so shall ye reap” and so does science, and presumably all the other disciplines that try to explain reality — people will think you are not a very good Christian. If you don’t know what happens when you sow hatred, then I expect you will find out that you reap misery.

And if you don’t know why the second law of thermodynamics is crucial to our decisions about energy, download the PDF of chapter one on the side bar to the right, and educate yourself.

For everyone who wants to know what you and I can do to help human kind and the ecosystem, here’s my proposal.

First, we need each to verbalize and state in writing and discuss together our long-term goals for the future of our children’s children. We need a goal for the same reason corporations do – to keep us on the same page and prevent us all running off in different directions at the same time – going nowhere. My goal is to make the world better, rather than worse, for my being here.

Next, it’s time to stop with the egos and learn to tell the difference between measurable facts, opinions, faith and propaganda. It’s time to understand that measurable facts (when they are available) are real things that are not affected by our opinions.

Third, we must start considering the multiple possible solutions to every problem and start discussing these – and stop arguing or fighting over false dichotomies. It doesn’t matter if we win or lose anything, because there isn’t one solution to any problem. Once we discuss our long-term goals, and our dilemmas, we will find that we the people mostly want the same things, and that most of our fights and arguments are being artificially generated by somebody else who has a goal that’s altogether different from our own long-term goal or the one we are fighting over.

Fourth, we need to listen to each other, what we say. Not what you think I would have meant if I had said something that I didn’t say.

That’s the basics. Nothing new there. You may think these too trivial to actually do when we have important matters to consider. Maybe so. I think, if we just did those things, we would change the whole world. But its true that we need at least two more parts to grow a sustainable society: the first is a factual understanding of how life really functions, and the second is a commitment to kindness in all our activities.

First, every person with every goal, especially those involving human compassion or sociology, needs to learn the basic facts about what keeps physical life physically alive within the physical ecosystem. Especially, we need to understand that the ecosystem does not operate by human values. We can not grow a healthy physical environment using only our human values. And we cannot live without a healthy ecosystem.

Second, every person with every goal, especially those who deal in politics, science, economics or technology. We all need to learn everything we can about the best of our human values, that is compassion, or kindness — and we need to support, and learn to understand, the ongoing efforts of people like the Dalai Lama and Karen Armstrong, and hundreds of others who are working under the radar in your own area. And stop supporting the worst of our human values. Fighting can sometimes temporarily stop something, but hating never solves problems, and neither does fear.

If anyone tries to frighten you into compliance with any unhelpful act, think about the measurable facts of the situation, and about our common goal, and step up to the plate and be counted, individually, for a sustainable human presence with a rewarding quality of life, unto the seventh generation. Or the seven hundredth.

We have many uncomfortable choices in our one lifetime, because we do have free will. We also have our fine human brain, and a compassionate instinct that makes us want to help, so we really can’t do nothing. And even though we need to heal the ecosystem, and the ecosystem problems look humongous, you and I are not responsible for what we can NOT do, or for what other people should do. We are only responsible for what we CAN do. And anyone can do that. And I think we should.

I heard that the Saint Mother Theresa used to pray for four hours every morning.
I heard (on tape) the Dalai Lama say that he does his meditation practice four hours every morning.

Is there a difference (humanly, I mean), is the human person doing a different thing when meditating than when praying? I doubt it. I’ve been told, when I tried to understand what we mean by meditation, because I wanted to do it, and every description seemed to be different. I was told: “There are many different kinds of meditation.”

“What?” I asked. “What are they?”

I think one of them is prayer.

Lately I’ve spent some time watching videos for a “book review” (OK, video review) group study.

I think television is also a form of meditation.

If so, we are in bad trouble, because the mass media are mostly teaching us art of suffering and how to cause suffering in the world.

Ladies, you need to expand your views beyond your own personal “human rights,” to include the real needs of starving and undernourished people around the world (including in the USA). The availability of family planning to the poor of the world was one of the first things that Obama restored when he took office. I think this effort to withdraw it again (see below I copied from PopulationConnection.org) must be the most important of any event to all of us if we care about starvation, immigration, economic and peace issues, and we need to say so. You know why this is happening. The corposystem uses uneducated people to push it’s agenda, because it benefits from all of the above, and so do the NGO’s that come to the rescue of the victims and have been incorporated into the corposystem. If this were not so, we would be concerned with helping people to a better life — not denying the necessary technology. It would conceivably be possible to use technologies to benefit the people rather than primarily to benefit the political/corporate domination of the people. And of course, the more desperate people there are in the world the more money is to be made off them in war, aid, propaganda and surveilance activities. If we would stop fighting among ourselves for a minute we would realized that we the people are being farmed like cattle, using our propaganda as a the management tool. We do not need more people-to-people hatred in this world. We do need to know that the corposystem is NOT A PERSON AND IS NOT OUR SPIRITUAL ADVISOR. It is an emergent entity of vast destruction to all human rights.

“We told you on Monday that the Republican majority in the House was poised to pass major restrictions on international family planning—including a cut of more than $200 million from current levels.
But now some members of the House want to eliminate that funding altogether. Rep. Bob Latta (R-OH) has proposed an amendment to the bill cut international family planning funding to zero. That’s right: the world Bob Latta envisions is one in which women and families in the developing world have no access to contraceptives to help them prevent unintended pregnancy. The extent of the misery and suffering resulting from such a cut is almost unimaginable. Today, thanks to U.S. support for family planning, more than 26 million women in the poorest countries in the world are able to delay or prevent pregnancy. Soon, if Bob Latta and his allies have their way, the clinics those women and their families rely on will close.
The Latta measure is not the only appalling amendment we expect to see. The Pence amendment, which bars all funding from Planned Parenthood, is expected to come to a vote as soon as tomorrow. Additionally, Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA) has filed an amendment to prevent the expansion family planning services covered by Medicaid—even though investing in family planning is one of the best ways to restrain health care costs. These amendments must not pass.
The far right must not be allowed use the rhetoric of fiscal discipline to pass their reactionary, irresponsible ideology. Please take a moment and send a message to your member of Congress: Defeat the anti-family planning agenda.”

Yes, the person will remain nameless but she is nobody you know. An interviewer who, with scorn in her voice proclaimed: “Some of their adherents predict a drastically reduced standard of living in the wake of the global economic collapse and we should be storing food and . . ., but there are a lot of people in the world, and I am one of them, who need more things, need more financial security. We’re not going to hear a ‘you’ve got to learn to live with less, power down lower your expectations’ kind of message.” Then she goes on to talk about people who are poverty stricken.

Please someone bring back Bill Moyers and I will start donating again to public radio, TV and internet. Oh. Of course. That’s why the corposystem is trying to get rid of public media.

THINGS COME FROM A HEALTHY ECOSYSTEM – THAT’S IT UNLESS YOU PLAN TO MOVE TO THE SUN. THE ECOSYSTEM IS SICK.

What I say to her is THIMK! Her own words display her ignorance and (much worse) selfishness. She needs more things! She won’t accept less! So? Where is she planning to get them? From those impoverished people? I think we already took pretty much all they have to give.

It makes no difference to the outcome whether she is willing to “hear” the message, except it will happen faster. Who does she think we are trying to save, if not her? Certainly not me. I already have more things and I don’t plan to be around when the shit hits the fan, but I bet she will be.

If I were not such a kind and compassionate person I would be having little daydreams of how she will feel when she really understands what’s happening and that she is IT. Reportedly, the fundamentalist preacher Rev. Richard Sizik, of the National Association of Evangelicals has recently noticed that these facts are real facts, and the realization reportedly shook him to his religious roots. I say it’s about time; thank you God and why wasn’t Sizik listening to the messengers of God’s green earth in the first place? Never mind, we do not need to fight over this. We need to fix it.

So I’ll at least try to include both the silly twit and the reverend in my morning devotionals. May they be happy.